Not Quite An Angel On Your Shoulder
by Anime Girl23
Summary: Puck could remember the accident, the horror that went through him when he realized the truck was going to hit them and the way Finn grabbed his hand in the moment before the impact. Now, his body is in a coma, Quinn's practically living at the hospital, he's a ghost, Finn's the only one that can see him, and all he can think is that senior year supposed to be like this. Puck/Quinn


And now I present to all of you...my contribution to the Puck Big Bang! This thing was a complete monster. The plot for this fic was based off of the storyline of an unlaunched Quick RP on tumblr, created by puckfasa (tumblr) and used with their permission.

As always, reviews are love. Even if it's something short, this thing was like my baby, so...

**Warnings: **Minor character death.

Disclaimer: Glee doesn't belong to me. If it did, canon would be a hell of a lot different.

Not Quite An Angel On Your Shoulder  
One-shot

One second everything was okay and the next, it wasn't.

Puck remembered the way his eyes went wide when he saw the truck run the red light. The way Finn shouted for him to look out and the terror that coursed through him when he realized in that split second that he couldn't do anything. There was no time to move. No time to get out of the way. This truck was going to hit them and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He felt Finn's hand encircle his wrist and made a mental note to mock him for it later.

He remembered closing his eyes and…

Nothing.

It was black.

He remembered nothing else about the accident. All he knew was that one second, he closed his eyes, waiting for the impact, and then... Nothing. The next time he opened them, he was standing, unharmed, in the middle of the street on the corner of Milk and Elm. The road was clear. No mangled cars. No blood. No cops or paramedics. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought that the accident had never happened.

Then again, maybe it hadn't. He'd had dreams before that had seemed so real that he'd woken up confused and struggling to separate reality from fantasy. Maybe he'd just had one of those dreams again. If that was it, though, it didn't explain why he'd woken up in the middle of the road. Sure, he'd gotten drunk and passed out in some weird places before, but he hadn't gotten that drunk since Rachel's party last year. Back then, he'd found himself in her dads' bathroom, hugging a loofa to his chest. He'd never woken up in a road before. Even drunk, he'd had enough self-preservation to not do something that stupid. Hell, he didn't even have a hangover.

He mumbled to himself, running a hand over his mohawk as he looked around. A couple of kids ran down the sidewalk, laughing and yelling as they turned the corner to go towards the park. They probably wanted ice cream. The trucks stayed parked in the lot all day come summer and it was fucking hot outside.

He'd actually kill for an ice cream right about now, he thought. The heat sucked.

"Where the fuck is my wallet?" he muttered as he searched his pockets. Empty. Not even a paperclip. He always had his wallet. Right back pocket. He could feel the stretch in the old denim jeans, the extra sag to the fabric from having his wallet shoved in there all the time. He never forgot it. Could never chance having his ma find his fake IDs.

He shook his head, confused, as he started down Elm. Finn's place was only a five minute walk from here. He'd go and make the guy drive him back. Help him find his wallet. And his phone. _Fuck_. He was missing that too? Fucking great. Okay, so make Finn help him find his wallet _and_ his phone. Maybe get the guy to buy him an ice cream while they were at it. At the very least, maybe Finn could explain what the hell happened last night. He didn't remember drinking, but maybe he'd managed to just get _that_ drunk.

Finn was in the front yard when he got there, running through some basketball drills completely half-assed. Dragging his feet. Missing shots.

"Dude, you suck."

Finn jumped, throwing the ball harder than he needed to and they both watched it sail right over the basket and over the fence into the back yard. Puck snorted.

"I think you missed," Puck snorted as he walked up the driveway. Finn still hadn't faced him and he rolled his eyes. Frowned as he got closer and noticed the cast around Finn's left arm. No wonder the guy couldn't make a basket. He could barely aim right with two arms, let alone one. "The fuck happened to your arm?"

Finn was pale when he finally turned to face him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. He extended a hand towards Puck, reaching out to touch him, but Puck moved back a step to avoid it.

"What the hell are you doing, Hudson? I don't swing that way."

"Puck… I…"

Something twisted in Puck's stomach as he watched tears gather in Finn's eyes. Fuck. What the hell was going on?

Finn reached forward again, this time, with his hand shaking like a leaf. Puck stepped back again and tripped over his own feet. Fell backwards.

Right through the lamppost.

_Through _the lamppost.

Puck stared at the rod of metal protruding from his stomach. No blood. No pain. It was just _there_. Sticking out of his stomach like it belonged there when it fucking _didn't_.

He looked up to Finn, both of them shaking now, and lifted a hand to touch the pole.

His hand passed right through it.

He was pretty sure his stomach fell right out of his body then. He stared at his hand and at his stomach before he rolled to the side and off the pole. He didn't feel so much as a tickle. By the time he got to his feet, he was surprised that his legs could support him. Then again, could he really be surprised by anything anymore? He'd just passed right through something like he was that Kitty chick from X-Men or…

A ghost.

Oh, God.

"I'm not dead," he said. "I'm _not_. I… Finn, please tell me I turned into a fucking X-Man or something."

"I-"

"Finn? Sweetheart, are you alright?"

They both startled at the voice as they spun around to look at Mrs. Hurley across the street, watching Finn worriedly. She didn't even seem like she saw Puck at all.

Okay, so he wasn't an X-Man.

Fuck. He was dead.

Oh, God.

He was dead.

He wasn't even eighteen yet. He still had another month to go before his birthday in August. And Beth. He was never going to see his fucking kid again.

His breath started coming fast (did he even need to breathe if he was dead?) and he started backing up. He was dead. He was a ghost. _Fuck_.

"Uh… Yeah, Mrs. Hurley. I'm fine. Just…" Finn's eyes drifted back towards Puck and Puck met his gaze, panicked. "Just thought I saw something. Must be the heat."

"Well, if you're sure… Go get some water. You don't want to make yourself sick."

Finn nodded and gave her that grin he always gave people when he was about to start freaking out. "Yeah. Good idea."

"Tell your parents I said hello!"

"'Kay!" he shouted back as he started towards the house. Paused before he passed Puck. "I don't know if I'm crazy, but come inside."

Puck followed him into the house, watching as Finn stuck his head under the faucet in the kitchen. Saw the look that crossed Finn's face when he looked up and saw that Puck was still standing there, some mix of fear, sadness, and hope.

Fuck hope. He was _dead_. What the fuck was there to hope for?

"What happened? The car accident… That wasn't a dream?"

"Hold on," Finn told him as he turned to his phone. "I need to call Quinn."

"Quinn? What the hell would she know?"

Finn held up a hand to silence him, but he didn't turn his back to him like he usually would if he was calling someone. Figured. Not like a ghost could blab about whatever was going on.

"Quinn? Yeah, it's me. I was just calling to…" Finn trailed off, listening to whatever Quinn was saying and nodding along with it as he wandered into the living room. "No change? Not even for a second? Nothing weird?" He paused, listening, before he sighed. "I was just asking. Call me if anything changes? Thanks." He hung up and heaved another sigh as he ran a hand through his wet hair, staring at the floor.

"Finn-"

"The truck hit your side of the car. Smashed right into you. We…" Finn swallowed thickly as he started rubbing at the cast. Traced a signature that looked like Brittany's. "The car flipped. I broke my arm. Had a concussion from when I hit my head on the dash. You-"

"-died."

"The impact broke your arm. Fractured your leg. You… You hit your head, too. Harder than I did. It hit the steering wheel and the airbag didn't go off. Your ribs broke and there was some kind of compression thing going on with your lungs because of the damage. One got punctured by a rib…"

"I get it."

"No, you don't. You… The doctors said you didn't get enough oxygen. Add in the head thing and…"

Finn finally looked up at him then, eyes glassy and Puck would be mocking him for acting like a girl if he didn't kind of want to start crying himself.

"You're in a coma, Puck."

Puck froze. Blinked. Blinked again.

He was in a coma?

He wasn't dead?

Oh, God. He wasn't dead.

He heaved a sigh of relief that probably sounded more like a sob.

He wasn't dead.

* * *

"I don't get it," Finn said as they sat on the living room floor. "If you're not dead, how are you a ghost?"

"I don't fucking know. I'm not an expert on this shit, Finn," Puck snapped back.

He was being an ass. He knew that. But… Fuck. He'd been in a coma for two weeks. Two fucking weeks and everything had gone screwy. His car was totaled. His mom was half-way into a bottle. Sarah was practically living in Brittany's sister's room. Quinn, who hadn't spoken to him in a year, was at the hospital more often than she wasn't. Finn had apparently gone all Ghost Whisperer: Comatose Edition. Rachel wasn't singing by his bedside which he was half-happy about, half-insulted by.

What? His Sleeping Beauty impersonation didn't warrant a song? The chick would sing about a broken nail if she could. She'd written a song about a fucking _headband_ and he didn't get anything?

Were there even any songs about being in comas?

"How are you going to get back in your body? _Can_ you?"

"I don't _know_, Hudson. Once again, I'm not a fucking expert. Maybe… I don't know. Can I possess someone or is that just a dead-ghost thing?"

"Maybe?"

Puck sighed and began to pace the room. He walked through the coffee table without much more than a glance. Okay. Still weird, but at least he wasn't dead. He could live with the ghostliness until he woke up.

"Quinn said there was no change?"

Finn shook his head. "Nothing."

"She's sure?"

"Yeah. She doesn't leave much, dude. This whole thing really scared her. Rachel said she was freaking out when she got to the hospital. Something about hair dye and tattoos."

"What?"

"I don't know."

Puck frowned, confused, because that didn't seem like Quinn. Sure, he'd seen her around a few times this summer and she'd seemed sort of off and her clothes had been taking a turn towards punk, but then again, they hadn't spoken for the better part of a year. He didn't know what was going on with her.

Still…

He could drop in. Check in with her and try to get back in his body. Maybe she'd be able to see him too. It couldn't hurt…

But the hospital was all the way on the other side of town. He couldn't even sit in a chair without falling through it, so catching a ride with Finn was probably out. He'd have to walk. Fuck.

Puck groaned at the thought of it. He could still feel the heat and walking all the way over there was going to suck. He wanted to just get-

-there.

What the…

This wasn't Finn's living room. He'd been there a second ago and then he blinked and he was in a hospital room. _His_ hospital room. "What the…" He could go wherever he wanted by just thinking about it. _Sweet_.

Maybe not so sweet. Crap. He looked like a mess. Finn had told him about the injuries, but hearing about it and seeing it were two different things. He wasn't surprised to see the bruises, but they managed to make his body look even worse. His left arm and leg encased in plaster. He could only imagine the bandages underneath his hospital gown, because _shit_, the doctors had cut him open to fix the hole in his lung. His chest was going to be scarred. Badass, but it was going to take some getting used to.

If there even was anything to get used to. He still didn't know if there was any way for him to get back in his body. If there wasn't… God. Would he have to watch himself die? Watch his mom pull the plug? Would he have to watch his own funeral? Would he even stick around that long or would he just disappear when his body…

God, he was going to be sick.

He was a fucking _teenager_.

Puck exhaled slowly, trying to push back the nausea. He doubted he could throw up like this, but either way, he really didn't want to test that theory. Breathe. Focus on… Quinn. Focus on Quinn.

Wait. Was she reading to him?

He stepped closer and, sure enough, she was. Curled up in a chair beside his bed, she had his collection of Harry Potter books piled on the nightstand. She had better be keeping those hidden when the others visited. The last thing he needed was them knowing about that obsession.

"'I mean,' said Malfoy, raising his voice a little more, his gray eyes glittering malevolently in Harry and Ron's direction, 'if it's a question of influence with the Ministry, I don't think they've got much chance,'" she read, "'…From what my father says, they've been looking for an excuse to sack Arthur Weasley for years… And as for Potter… My father says it's a matter of time before the Ministry has him carted off to St. Mungo's… Apparently they've got a special ward for people whose brains have been addled by magic…'"

She kept reading for a while and he got lost in it, listening to the soft tone of her voice and remembering the good days they had when she was living with him. The days where they just sat around, doing nothing. He'd keep his head in her lap, one ear pressed against her belly while the other listened to her read to him. He missed those days. There hadn't been enough.

He whispered her name when she finished the chapter and reached for her water bottle, but she didn't react. He tried again, this time a little louder as he knelt beside her chair, but she acted like he wasn't even there. Maybe it was only Finn that could see him, he considered as his hand phased through hers. Nothing.

She picked up the book again and opened up to Chapter Eighteen.

"'Umbridge has been reading your mail, Harry. There's no other explanation…'"

Puck sighed, circling around his hospital bed to stare at the beeping monitors. They didn't make any sense to him, but he figured the numbers he saw was good. He had to be stable at this point, right? Maybe he could try lying in his body or something. See if that changed the numbers or whatever. Maybe he'd get lucky and it would snap him back inside like some kind of puzzle piece.

"Don't be a pussy," he mumbled to himself when his nerves kept him from moving. "Just get up there and lie down."

He took a deep breath, holding it in as he laid his right hand down in line with his body's. There was a shock, some kind of tickle that didn't pick up on the monitors, but it made him let the breath go. Okay. A tickle was good. That meant there was still some kind of connection, right?

He took another breath as he maneuvered himself up onto the bed without losing the connection at his hand. Laid down and it held him. There was a tickle and-

He fell through.

How he didn't keep falling through the floors below him, he wasn't sure and he didn't really care. He just lay under the hospital bed, swearing.

Maybe one more time. Maybe it just needed a kick start.

He ended up on the floor again.

The same thing happened the third time.

The fourth.

The fifth.

Umbridge was inspecting Hagrid's class by the time he finally gave up.

He sank down on the floor next to Quinn's chair with a sigh and listened to her read, one hand lifted up through the bars on the bed to touch his body's hand. The tickle it gave was as comforting as anything right now.

While she read, he stared at her. There wasn't much else he could do. He couldn't lay his head in her lap like usual without phasing right through, so he stared. It was probably a little creepy, but whatever. Unless Finn showed up, no one else could see him. He was free to do whatever.

She looked good. Better than she had the other times he'd seen her this summer. The punk look she'd been moving towards had looked hot, but it wasn't her. The dresses and the little sweaters were Quinn, even more than the Cheerio's uniform she'd gotten back into for part of junior year.

She looked good now, back in her own clothes and not looking as angry as she had been for a while. She looked like Quinn again.

The characters were just arriving at the Department of Mysteries when she stopped and looked at his body sadly. "You're too quiet," she said softly. "You're not quiet, Puck. You're supposed to be interrupting me and fidgeting. You're supposed to be grumbling about how awful Umbridge is and how they should have just fed her to the squid." Something in her voice cracked at the end of her sentence and she ducked her head. Her shoulders shook for a moment before she looked back at the form in the bed, eyes teary and teeth biting at her bottom lip. "You need to wake up."

He tried. God, he fucking tried and he did it five more times, hoping that it would work this time around. He just wanted her to stop crying.

"Great work, Puckerman," he muttered to himself, bitter. "As if you haven't made her cry enough already."

He tried once more just as Finn appeared in the doorway. The guy jumped as Puck walked through the bed and dropped back down to sit next to Quinn's chair. "Shut up and pretend I'm not here."

"Kind of hard," Finn shot back. Quinn jumped at his voice and dropped the book to the floor.

"You scared me," she said, hand over her chest. "Is knocking that difficult, Finn?"

"Sorry."

Quinn sighed. "What were you talking about?"

"Huh?"

"What's hard?"

"Oh. I… I just meant…" Finn looked a little panicked and Puck cringed. He needed to hold it together before someone tossed him in the psych ward or something. If he said he was seeing him… "It's just hard to, you know, see him like this."

Quinn's face fell a little as she looked back to the body in the bed. "Yeah," she murmured. "I know."

"You okay?"

"I don't know."

* * *

She'd been sitting in the tattoo parlor when Rachel called her, hysterical and going on about trucks and red lights and _they're hurt_. She'd run out of there so fast that she'd left behind the CVS bag holding the hair dye. Sped the entire way to the hospital with Rachel on speaker phone.

_ "Finn's mom called me. Finn and Noah… It's bad, Quinn. It's really bad."_

In the end, Finn was mostly okay. A broken arm and a concussion, but he walked out of the hospital the day after the accident. That same day, Puck flat-lined because of a complication and they had to rush him back into surgery. He was stable now, but he still hadn't woken up. She knew that wasn't good. She'd watched enough movies and read enough articles since the accident to know that prolonged comas were never good. The longer the person stayed like that, the lower the chance was of them waking up and if they _did _wake up, there was always the possibility that there'd be brain damage.

She didn't want to think about that, but as every day went by with no improvement, she got scared. He needed to wake up.

Quinn sighed and stood from the chair so she could get another water bottle from her purse. The room was too quiet. The others came by whenever they could, Finn more than others, but even when they were here, it was weird. Puck was never this quiet unless he was upset about something and even then, he'd be making biting little comments.

Having him like this… It wasn't right.

She circled the bed, straightening the blankets and fluffing the pillow just so she could feel somewhat helpful. Drew another dot on his cast like she'd been doing every day. Eighteen dots for eighteen days in the coma. She'd clustered them all by his thumb, neat little lines of seven. They were part-way onto the third line now and it made something in her chest twist as she put the pen down.

"Someone needs to cut your hair," she told him as she touched his head. They'd had to shave his mohawk off after the accident so they could stitch up a cut. Now, his hair was growing in like it hadn't since they were kids. A little longer and it would start curling. "I know how much you hate your curls."

He didn't offer her any kind of response and she bit her lip. She hated this. Hated seeing him like this. Hated not knowing if he could even hear a word she said.

Save for a few moments, she'd ignored him since Beth was born. Ignored his texts. Made her mom turn him away if he tried to come by the house. She'd see him in the hall at school and try and pretend he didn't exist. Pretend that sophomore year didn't exist.

It never worked, though. She couldn't forget and she didn't think he could either. Their little girl, the one she'd wanted to keep but had been too scared to. The one she knew he hadn't wanted to give up. Guilt bubbled in her stomach for all the ways things could have been different if she'd just admitted the truth from the very beginning.

_"I'd take care of it. You too."_

_ "This parent thing? We can do this."_

_ "I want to be with you."_

_ "Yes. Especially now."_

Things could have been different. _They_ could have been different.

"You're such an egghead," she mumbled. The name wasn't funny anymore, but she still tried to pretend it was, simply because it was a memory of a happier time.

She knew she'd been a wreck this last year. Somewhere along the way, she'd lost herself. She'd become so focused on trying to get back to the way things had been that she'd lost sight of who she and everyone else had become. No one was like they'd been at the beginning of sophomore year. They'd all grown up in some way and going back… It wasn't possible. All any of them could do was keep moving forward.

"School starts up again next week," she told him as her finger found a patch the nurse had missed when she was shaving him. "I know you don't like school, but isn't this a little melodramatic? It's senior year."

The beeping of the monitors was her only response, but when she closed her eyes, she imagined she could hear him laughing.

* * *

By the time school started up again, Finn wasn't sure if he was happy or sad about it. On one hand, it was _school_, so kill him now. On the other hand, though, it gave him something to focus on that _wasn't_ the constant presence of his best friend's ghost. Puck was almost always there, hanging around and trying to act like shit was normal when it _wasn't_ and they both knew that.

"You're not coming to class with me, right?" he asked as he pretended to rifle around in his car. He tried to make it look as innocent as he could, but he _was_ pretty much talking to himself in the middle of the school parking lot. Just keep your voice down and no one will notice, he thought. Yeah. He could do that.

Puck snorted. "Dude, I didn't go to class when I _wasn't_ a ghost. You think I'm going now?"

The guy had a point. "What are you gonna do then?"

"Drift? I don't know," Puck said, shrugging. "Hit the hospital. Check on Sarah. Whatever."

"Sit with Quinn?" He sent his ghostly friend a knowing look, grinning softly, and returned to shoving stuff into his backpack. "If you're not haunting my ass, you're usually with her."

"Because she's usually at the hospital. I'm still trying to find a way back in my body. Or do you want me to stay like this?"

Stung, Finn jerked his head to look at Puck. "You know I don't, dude." He wanted Puck to actually be in his body and be awake. Having Puck there with him but not? It managed to make the whole coma-thing harder and easier at the same time. Yeah, he got to talk to the other teen, but every day Puck reappeared next to him, muttering and annoyed, was another day that Finn lost a little hope that his friend would ever wake up.

There still hadn't been any progress on his body. The wounds and broken bones from the accident had mostly healed over and the casts had been replaced by braces, but that was it. According to the doctors, Puck's brain scans hadn't shown any change and they all knew that the longer Puck stayed like that, the less chance he'd have of waking up. He'd been like this too long and the doctors couldn't tell them why.

Finn rubbed a hand over his head, sighing, as the warning bell rang. "Dude-"

Puck was already gone. Disappeared just as silently as he always did. Great.

He knew this was hard on Puck too. Puck was the ghost. He was the one that kept trying and failing to get back in his body. Finn just hoped he figured it out soon. He wanted his friend back.

* * *

"He kind of looks like he's sleeping."

The soft voice shocked Quinn out of the daze she'd been in as she stared at Puck's still form and she spun in her chair. Wide eyes fell on Shelby and Quinn's mind short-circuited. She hadn't seen this woman since they signed the adoption papers. Rachel had mentioned in passing that Shelby had moved to New York, but… "What are you doing here?"

Shelby stepped fully into the room, but she still looked out of place. "I moved back," she said as her eyes drifted between Quinn and Puck. "Your principal hired me to head another glee club. I'd wanted to talk to you both after I saw Rachel. She told me about the accident. How's he doing?"

"The same," Quinn mumbled as she closed the book in her lap. She'd finished Harry Potter the week before and spent another day searching Puck's bedroom just to find out that those were the only real books he owned. In the end, she started Pride & Prejudice, figuring at the very least that Puck might wake up just so he could tell her to stop. "The injuries are healing. He's just not waking up."

Shelby hummed some sympathetic noise as she circled around to the other side of the bed. She sat and… God. What was Quinn supposed to do with this? She hadn't seen Shelby since that last day at the hospital and now she was here. Seeing Shelby just brought back memories of Beth and it _hurt_.

She stood up just to busy herself. She fixed Puck's blankets. Righted the teddy bear Sarah had bought that had fallen over. Laid her hand on his cheek just to make sure he wasn't warm. It was stupid, but an infection had set in during his first week in the hospital and it made her paranoid. These days, she was always checking to make sure no fever had popped up.

"I wanted you to both be a part of Beth's life."

Quinn froze, eyes wide as they shot to Shelby's face. She wanted… She meant they could… "What?"

"I want you to both be a part of Beth's life," she said again as she touched Puck's hand softly before pulling back to get her phone. She handed it over after a minute, smiling softly as she presented Quinn with a photo of Beth.

Oh, God.

Quinn stared at the photo of her daughter, trying so hard to not fall apart. Between the stuff she'd been going through and everything with Puck, this was just too much. Beth was beautiful. When she was born, Puck had said that Beth looked like her, but now… God, Quinn could see so much of Puck in that little girl. Sure, she had Quinn's hair color and her eyes, but she also had Puck's curls and that same puppy dog look he used to give her when he would ask if they could skip school and stay in bed.

Beth was perfect.

She might have started crying as she stared at it, but what else was she supposed to do? After everything… She wished Puck could see this. See _her_, the baby they created together.

"I want to meet her," she finally whispered as Shelby forwarded the picture to her phone.

If she closed her eyes, she could pretend Puck was standing next to her.

_"We're gonna see her, Q."_

* * *

It took everything Puck had to not follow Shelby home when she left the hospital that day. The girls had set up a time for Quinn to go over after school tomorrow to actually meet Beth, but he could have gone. He could have seen Beth right then, except something held him back. Maybe it was nerves or maybe it was the way Quinn sat down next to his body and started describing their daughter almost as soon as Shelby walked out of the room.

"She's beautiful, Puck," she said, face wet. "You need to wake up so you can see her."

God. He fucking tried. He spent the rest of that night and most of the next day trying everything he could possibly think of to get back in his body. He tried methods that either seemed outright crazy or ones that had already failed him before. So maybe he was hoping that they'd work this time around. Whatever.

He just wanted to be able to see Beth.

He wanted her to be able to see him.

When she was born, he'd only gotten to hold her for a few minutes. He'd only had a few minutes to snap some pictures and try to commit to memory the way her nose scrunched when she woke up. The way she felt in his arms. He'd left the room when the nurse took her back, wandered out until he managed to kind of fall into Schue's arms, and broke. For months, he'd known that Beth would never really be his and it had hurt, but actually having her there and seeing her? Knowing that he'd probably never get to see that perfect little girl again? He'd felt like he was dying.

Ten minutes before school let out, though, and he was still the same ghost he'd been for a while now. He sighed, kicking at the bed as if it would make a difference, and closed his eyes so he could focus on being next to Quinn.

Seconds later and he was standing in the middle of her desk, eyebrows raised as she kept writing notes.

Right.

Through.

His.

Crotch.

It would have been funnier if she could see him and go that shade of red she used to go whenever he caught her doing something Chastity Ball queens shouldn't do. He still got a laugh, though, because he definitely heard Finn choke in the back of the room.

"Suck it up, Finnocence," he said as he stepped into the aisle and headed down towards his friend. He dropped down to sit cross-legged on the floor, his left knee poking through the leg of Jimmy Butler's desk.

Finn glared at him for a moment before he turned his eyes back to his notebook and switched over to a new page. He scribbled something down and tapped the side of his desk in a silent message for Puck to stand up. He did, leaning over his friend's shoulder to read the note.

_What are you doing here?_

"Shelby's back," he replied. "She's letting Quinn see Beth today. I wanted to go." He rolled his eyes as Finn shot him some kind of wide-eyed look that was probably supposed to be some kind of shock and surprise, but looked more like someone had grabbed his junk. "Dude, stop that. Everyone's gonna think you're staring at Jimmy."

_Fuck you._

"Not my type."

_Why didn't you already go? Why are you waiting?_

Puck turned his eyes to the floor and shrugged. "I just…wanted to wait for Quinn."

Finn nodded, as he turned back to his paper, looking like he understood what the teacher was saying for once. Funny. The day Finn understood Calculus was the day Puck passed Geography.

_Maybe she'll be able to see you. They say kids are, like, attuned to that stuff. Spirits and past lives and shit._

"You need to stop watching Ghost Hunters," he said. "That shit's rotting your brain." Seriously. Finn and his obsession for all things supernatural. He'd never understand why Finn was still so into the ghost stuff when he had his best friend haunting him, but whatever. Let him do what he wanted. He could be a fucking ghost whisperer for all Puck cared.

He was gonna see Beth today. That was all that mattered.

* * *

It had taken weeks before Puck figured out the trick to getting into a car. So long as he focused on being with the person driving, he could stay inside. He wasn't sitting comfortably in the seat, but if he held his attention, he could do it. He did it with Quinn that day, but not without issues. The idea of seeing Beth had his mind so preoccupied that he fell out of the car more times than he would have liked to. Finally, he got fed up and just focused on Shelby's address instead and waited for Quinn to pull into the driveway.

She was shaking as she got out of the car, straightening her dress and running her fingers through her hair nervously as she walked up to the door. "Breathe," she told herself, voice soft as she knocked. "Just breathe."

He stood beside her, feeling nine kinds of useless because he couldn't do anything. Sure, he had his hand hovering over her back, but it wasn't like she could feel his attempt to comfort her. Hell, he was just as nervous as she was and, now, he couldn't get Finn's fucking idea out of his head.

What if Beth could see him? What if she could actually…

Shelby opened the door, smiling as she let Quinn inside and led her towards the living room. "How are you?"

"Good," Quinn said.

"Nervous?"

Quinn nodded. "A little."

Really? Because Puck was a hell of a lot nervous and no one even fucking knew he was there. Except maybe Beth. Fuck. Did ghosts need to breathe? He hoped not. He'd kind of forgotten how.

She was right there. His and Quinn's baby girl was three feet away from them, standing up in her playpen and she was… Fuck. She was even more perfect than she was in the picture. Looking at her now, she was…everything.

Beth smiled _his_ smile as she saw Shelby, hopping slightly as she held onto the wall of the playpen. Her eyes drifted over to Quinn, curious. Then, they turned to him.

Fuck.

She was looking at him and—fuck it all—he wanted to cry.

"Hi," he finally choked out as she continued staring.

"What are you looking at? Seeing ghosts?" Shelby asked, cooing in a baby voice as she picked Beth up and brought her over to Quinn. Beth took her eyes off him then, turning her focus to her biological mother and Puck realized at that moment that Quinn was still shaking.

"She looks like you," he told Quinn needlessly, smiling as he took a spot by the blonde girl's side and watched as Shelby continued talking and Beth grew more comfortable with the strangers in front of her. She reached out to Quinn eventually and he smiled wider, teeth showing now. "Take her," he said at the same time Shelby did.

"You're sure?" Quinn asked, sounding nervous, and Puck remembered that she had never gotten to hold Beth. Not really. She'd sort of held her when the nurses laid Beth down next to her, but she hadn't allowed herself to actually take that little girl in her arms properly. It was like she'd been afraid that she wouldn't be able to let go if she did. This would be the first time she actually got to hold her daughter.

Shelby nodded and transferred Beth into Quinn's shaking arms carefully. Beth settled into them after a few seconds, staring at Quinn, wide-eyed, now that she was closer. Her hand touched Quinn's cheek and he watched as the "head bitch" fell apart, holding Beth to her chest. He'd kill anyone that said Quinn didn't love that little girl, that she hadn't cared when she signed those papers. Quinn loved her more than anything and even if he'd doubted that for instants in the past, any proof anyone could ever need was right there.

"Beth, can you say 'hi'?" Shelby asked.

"Hi," Beth said to Quinn, voice soft. She turned her head, eyes on him as she smiled again. "Hi."

He broke.

* * *

Two months later and it all came crashing down.

Quinn was half-way through Breaking Dawn—her latest attempt to try and torture him into waking up—when Finn came in, pale-faced, dazed, and looking like he was about ready to fall over. Puck had watched him from his spot on the floor as Finn's eyes flickered between her, his body, and him. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what was wrong, but then Finn was talking. Told her that there had been an accident and that Beth was fine, but Shelby hadn't made it.

Things were kind of a blur after that and if he wasn't hovering around Beth and trying to distract her so she wouldn't start screaming for Shelby, he was floating around Quinn, Finn, or Rachel. The funeral came and went as people cried and whispered about what was going to happen to Beth now.

"It's not like Shelby had a husband. The child wasn't even hers."

Puck glared at the woman and stuck a hand through her head just because he could. He fucking hated people like that. He wanted to scream at them. Tell them that Beth's DNA had nothing to do with it and that she had been Shelby's, maybe even more than she'd been Quinn's and his. Now, Shelby was gone and none of this was fucking okay. He was a ghost and his daughter had just lost the only mother she'd ever known. Rachel was crying into Finn's chest, mourning the loss of a woman she was only just starting to know. Beth clung to Quinn, crying and yelling for her momma. Fuck him, but the look on Quinn's face was going to kill him before the coma did. She looked fucking heartbroken every time Beth called for Shelby, whispering to the little girl that everything was going to be okay.

"She loved you, Beth. She did," Quinn told her as she tried to calm the child. Beth kept crying, though, and she was still crying when Shelby's lawyer pulled her aside and started talking about Shelby's will and Beth's guardian.

Puck listened as closely as he could as the lawyer rambled on about Shelby not wanting Beth to get tossed in the system and that she'd wanted the option to be raised to Beth's birth parents should anything happen.

"Now, the father. He's not around anymore?" the lawyer asked and Puck could tell he was trying to sound neutral, but he came off more like a judgmental ass. It didn't get past Quinn and her eyes narrowed into a glare.

"He's in a coma," she replied, sounding just this side of bitchy. The guy kind of deserved it, though, so whatever. "Car accident."

"Oh." Yeah. That was it, dude. Feel awkward. Go ahead, Puck thought as the guy fell back into legal-speak. Most of it went right over his head, but by the end, he understood that they could get Beth back. She could be theirs again. They'd signed away their rights when the adoption happened, so there was something about having to officially adopt her or see a judge about reinstating the rights… He didn't understand completely, but Quinn was nodding and Judy was suddenly by her side, telling the guy that they'd speak to their lawyer.

"Quinnie, you need to think about this," Judy said as the lawyer disappeared back into the crowd of mourners. "I know you love her, but you gave her up for a reason. You're going to Yale in the fall. You can't just throw it all away. You could let someone else adopt her."

"And never see her again?" Quinn and him seemed to echo the question at the same time. If Beth went into the system, who the fuck knew what would happen? People wanted babies. They wanted tiny little babies that were brand new and… She could grow up in the fucking system. Even if she did get adopted again, there was no way to know if her new parents would let them be a part of her life. They couldn't just go back to the way things had been. Beth knew them now. They couldn't just…

"That's how closed adoptions work," Judy told her. "That was what you chose."

"Maybe I made a mistake."

"Quinn…"

He was going to fucking scream. Quinn and Judy just kept arguing in the corner, angry whispers that wouldn't stop because both women were too stubborn. He caught sight of Finn across the room, lost in the sea of people he didn't know while Rachel clung to her fathers.

"I need your help," he said as he half-jogged up to his friend, casting a glance back at the arguing blondes.

"Kinda hard to talk here," Finn muttered which, yeah, Puck got. People were gonna think Finn had lost his mind if he started talking to air, but this was important. It was Quinn and it was his fucking kid. He didn't want to lose Beth again.

"Just help Quinn with her mom. We can get Beth back and she wants Quinn to let her go into the system." He moved to touch Finn's arm, but he dropped it when he remembered that it was pointless. "Just… Talk for me or something."

He must have looked pathetic or something, because Finn didn't even fight with him about confronting Judy Fabray. The woman kind of scared them both, but Finn walked right up to them, smiling softly at Beth as she reached for him. He took her from Quinn, holding the little girl close as she curled up against him.

"Finn. Excellent," Judy said. "Please tell Quinn that it would be best for Beth to get adopted again."

"It's not up to him, Mom!"

"Actually…" Finn started as he glanced at Puck for a moment. "Uh… Keeping her wouldn't be, like, bad or anything. If she wanted to, that is. I just… I mean, I know Puck would wanna keep her."

"The boy has been in a coma for five months. The chances of him waking up at this point-"

"There's a chance," Quinn snapped, glaring at her mother.

"It's almost Christmas, Quinn," Judy said. "The accident was in July. It might be time to accept that there isn't anything left."

"There is," Finn cut in.

"I don't think they mean ghosts, dude."

"It's Puck," he continued as if Puck hadn't said anything. "He's my best friend. If he was gone, I'd know. Trust me."

Puck snorted. Yeah. If anyone knew he was still around, it was Finn. Trust the guy to turn some weird cosmic thing into a line that belonged in a chick flick when all he'd had to do was remind Judy that he wasn't brain dead. His body had been breathing on its own for a while now. Hell, the doctors had said there was brain activity. He just…wasn't awake.

"That's very sweet, Finn, but-"

"I'm keeping her." All eyes turned to Quinn as she silently took Beth back from Finn. She kissed her daughter's head softly as the child continued to sniffle, too exhausted to cry anymore.

"Quinnie-"

"I'm keeping her."

Puck's face split into a relieved smile. "Any chance you'd kiss her for me?" he asked Finn, only half-serious.

Judging from the look Finn shot him when the girls weren't looking, it was a no.

* * *

Christmas came and went and, still, Puck's body remained just as comatose as it had been since the accident. He remained a ghost, floating around the Fabray house and playing with Beth as much as he was able, knowing as he did that Quinn would watch them, never knowing that the empty space Beth would babble at was her father.

He let his hand go through Beth's belly just because he knew it would make her laugh and tried to ignore the sadness her giggles brought him. With every day that passed, he was getting closer and closer to six months in this stupid coma. Six months of not having a real conversation with anyone except Finn (no offense to the guy). Six months of not sleeping in his own bed. Six months of not sleeping because ghosts don't sleep. Making it to six months comatose would also bring him to three months of not being able to hold Beth. He was with her every day, playing with her and loving her, but the last time he held her in his arms, she was a newborn and they were in a hospital.

He pulled his hand back as Quinn came in from the kitchen and scooped Beth off the floor. "Lunchtime," she told their daughter.

He followed them into the kitchen watching from the doorway as Quinn set Beth in her high chair and gave her a plate of cut up hotdogs.

"They're kosher, Puck. Promise," she said softly and a little sadly as she ran her fingers through Beth's hair. "Can you say 'kosher', Beth? Make Daddy happy when he wakes up?"

Beth said it, but it ended up coming out sounding more like 'kosa' before she turned back to her little hotdog pieces. He didn't care. It was kind of cute anyway and it made Quinn laugh a bit.

"He takes longer naps than you do," she mused softly as she took a hotdog slice off the plate and cut it in half again, deeming it too large. "But he loves you. He always has."

Puck stood there as she continued to talk to Beth, telling her about him and the stupid shit he used to pull. He really regretted swallowing that thumb tack, he thought as he watched them.

They were adjusting. Shelby's will, a kind judge, a smart lawyer armed with cases from other states, a request to think about Shelby's wishes and what was best for Beth had all played a part in the judge agreeing to a trial basis. Social workers would be dropping by unannounced for the next few months and assuming things went well, Quinn could get her rights back rather than try to adopt or become a foster parent when she was still legally considered a dependent.

Nothing was perfect. There were still days that Beth did nothing but cry for Shelby, but the counselor Quinn (and Puck, sort of) had been seeing had said that it would change with time. Beth would adjust and the cries for Shelby would stop eventually.

_"It's a big adjustment for everyone. Yourself included."_

The woman had a point. Quinn wasn't having it easy. Suddenly, she was a full-time mother who was trying to sooth a grieving baby, keep her grades up, and finish her senior year, all at the same time. Forget the fact that her kid's father was lying in a coma.

Nothing was easy right now.

* * *

"There has to be something you haven't tried yet."

"I've done everything I could think of," Puck said as he paced inside the living room of the otherwise empty house. "I don't think I'm ever gonna fucking wake up."

"You will," he told him, but even Finn wasn't sure anymore. They were going into March now and although Puck's injuries had healed, he was still like this. The doctors couldn't explain why other than their stupid 'the human mind is an unpredictable thing' spiel. They were all getting sick of hearing it. Him. Puck. Quinn. Sarah was starting to think Puck was either Snow White or Sleeping Beauty and that he just needed a prince to kiss him awake.

He had to keep reminding her that Puck liked princesses and to stop taking Disney so seriously.

Quinn hadn't exactly been happy the first time it led to Sarah telling her to kiss Puck because "you're even better than a princess! You're a queen!" Still, Finn had seen her kiss Puck's cheek as he was leaving that day.

This entire situation sucked. Like, it majorly sucked. His best friend was a ghost. He couldn't tell his girlfriend. Quinn was doing the single mom thing. This wasn't how senior year was supposed to go. They were supposed to be having the times of their lives before a bunch of them graduated and got the hell out of Lima. Instead, they were living (mostly in Puck's case) and turning library-time into hospital-time while they sat around Puck's bed and talked to his body. The others had started the idea back in September and he went along with it, not knowing how to tell them that Puck wasn't there. Puck was never there at study time.

_"It's bad enough that I'm in a coma. Listening to that shit might just make it worse."_

Puck sighed and stopped his pacing. "You don't know that."

He didn't. That was what made it even worse.

* * *

"Say hi to Daddy, Beth," Quinn whispered as she toed the door shut.

"Hi," the little girl said as she waved, but she waved at the wall instead of at Puck's comatose form. It never quite made sense to her that Beth did that every time they came, but she didn't question it as she placed Beth down on the bed, careful to avoid the pulse-reader on Puck's finger and the IV drip in his hand. Beth seemed to be good about not pulling on them, but it was better to be safe rather than deal with angry nurses. She was lucky they even let her bring Beth in for these weekly visits.

Beth crawled closer to Puck's face, unable to get onto her feet with the little room she had on the bed, and clapped her hand on his cheek softly. "Ma," she said as she looked at Quinn. It wasn't quite 'mommy', but Quinn still loved hearing it and she was fine with 'ma' for now. It was something.

"Hm?"

Beth looked back at Puck. "Daddy."

"That's right, Beth. That's Daddy." She placed her hand on Beth's head, smiling sadly. Puck would have loved to hear that. He would have loved to see her in general.

Beth pointed over to the wall again, smiling. "Daddy."

She shook her head. "Daddy's not over there."

Beth simply stared at her, puzzled. Her perfect imitation of Puck's face any time he didn't understand something. Eyebrows furrowed, mouth open a little bit. She was her father's daughter.

Quinn sighed and touched one of the curls on Puck's head as Beth went back to poking her father's cheek. "You'd hate your hair," she murmured. His hair had grown in so much since the accident. Maybe they should have just kept up with shaving his head, but she thought he looked kind of cute. She hadn't seen his curls since they were kids.

She pulled at one softly just so she could watch it spring back into place and laughed a little bit. "I'll shave it off if you wake up," she told him. "I'll even give you your mohawk back." She didn't get so much as a twitch in response and if she was being honest, she wasn't expecting one. She'd been trying those little bribes for months and now they were approaching May and nothing had changed. "Only you could sleep through senior year, Puckerman."

He slept on.

* * *

"He's never going to wake up, is he?" Quinn asked, watching as Beth climbed over Puck's legs.

"He has to," Finn said as he cast a glance at Puck's form in the corner.

"We graduate in two weeks, Finn. He's been like this for ten months. How much longer are we supposed to hope that it's going to change?"

"He's still here, Quinn."

She sighed and stood from her chair, circling around the bed to get her water bottle. "You keep saying that."

"Maybe Sarah was right about needing a kiss to wake him up," he said, joking.

She glared at him lightly, shifting Beth away as she got a little too close to the edge of the bed.

"Sarah's the one that said it."

"Sarah's ten."

Finn shrugged a shoulder. "Weirder shit has happened."

"Like what?"

Finn's eyes met Puck's and he chuckled softly. "Just trust me."

* * *

Puck stood in Finn's room, his hand phasing through the red graduation cap on Finn's desk. It sucked. It seriously fucking sucked. His friends were graduating in two days and he was still stuck like this. Quinn was going to take Beth with her to Yale. Finn was going off to Georgia for his fucking army training. His best friend was leaving. Quinn was leaving. His daughter was fucking leaving. Then, there was him. Stuck as a ghost while his body lay in a bed, muscles disappearing and weakening despite the exercises the physical therapist did every day.

He was a comatose Lima Loser.

"You are not."

Puck looked up, not realizing that he'd said it out loud, and shrugged. "Kinda am."

"You're in a coma. Kinda hard to apply to college when you can't hold a pen," Finn said without looking up from the IM conversation he was having with Rachel, probably talking about the long distance thing they'd promised to make work.

Puck sighed. He knew it was stupid, but he'd been in a coma for almost a fucking year. Eleven months and, yeah, he was starting to lose fucking hope that he was ever going to wake up. Doomed to be a ghost until his body finally kicked the bucket and fuck knows if he'd actually pass on or whatever after that. For all he knew, he was stuck like this forever.

He didn't _want_ to be a ghost forever. Back when he was a kid, he always used to make jokes and say that it'd be cool. He thought it'd be nice to see what the fuck happened with the world. Not anymore, though.

Being a ghost was lonely.

He just wanted it to be over and he wasn't even sure what 'it' was anymore. The coma. Being stuck like this. Life.

He put his hand through the cap again, roaming around the room because he really didn't have anything else to do. Finn ignored him for the most part, too focused on whatever him and Rachel were trying to figure out. Maybe it wasn't the long distance thing. Maybe it was about the four-year engagement Rachel had insisted on when she told Finn yes, telling him that she wanted to finish school first. Honestly, he figured it would turn into a five or six year thing, but he wasn't gonna tell Finn that.

He stopped in the middle of the room as his vision faltered and his head spun. What the… He felt something in his chest, grasping and pulling, and he gasped Finn's name, sounding strangled.

"Puck? What the hell?"

"I don't know. It…. Ow. Ow. This fucking hurts."

"You're fading," Finn said, sounding more than a little freaked out. "Why are you fading?!" Yeah. There was the panic.

"I don't know!"

"Just… Don't fade. Can't you do that?"

Puck shook his head, eyes pressed shut as the pressure in his chest grew. "I don't think so." He looked at Finn, scared. Was this it? Had his body finally just given up? Yeah, he was tired of this shit, but did he actually want to die? He had Finn and Quinn and Beth and Sarah. He couldn't just…

"Puck…"

He didn't want to die.

He faded anyway.

* * *

He felt heavy.

The light burned as he tried to open his eyes and he shut them again, groaning softly. Everything felt…weird. He couldn't move. His body was some mix of numb and too many sensations. Okay. Yeah. This sucked ass.

He could hear a voice in his ear that didn't sound like Finn. Then, there were more, telling him to open his eyes while a shaking hand held his.

Wait…

He peeked an eye open slowly as the lights dimmed and the burning behind his eyelids ceased. What the… He was lying down which was kind of weird when he remembered that he hadn't been able to lie down without falling for almost a year.

"Puck…"

He was… This was his hospital room. What…

"Puck, look at me."

That sounded like Quinn… His head fell to the side, following the voice as much as he could. Yeah. That was Quinn. She stared back at him, smiling and eyes shining a little, but…

Wait.

She was looking at him.

"You can see me?" The words came out scratchy and slurred, hurting a bit because his throat was fucking dry. Kinda made sense. He hadn't had a sip of water in eleven months.

"Of course I can see you," she said, laughing softly as the doctors turned his attention over to them, poking and prodding. Asking if anything hurt. How he felt.

"Movin' feels weird." A nurse put a cup of water to his mouth, telling him to sip slowly, but he wanted to drink the entire thing in a gulp.

"Yes," the doctor said, nodding slightly before he went into telling Puck everything he already knew. He'd been in a coma and despite exercises with a physical therapist, his muscles did atrophy. He'd need to continue meeting with someone to build his strength back up, but for now, he'd find his body to be weaker than he remembers it being.

He didn't say anything, but he thought it might also be because he'd spent the last eleven months weighing as much as air. Not that he was gonna tell the guy that.

After a while, it was just him and Quinn and… Fuck. She wasn't going to start crying, was she? He didn't do well with crying girls, especially when they were crying because of him. He took her hand, squeezing softly as he looked up at her. "Hey."

"Hey," she whispered back, bottom lip drawn between her teeth as she smiled. "Welcome back."

"Do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Never fucking read me that Twilight shit again," he said, groaning like he'd been tortured.

She laughed, something between happy and hysterical. "You heard that?"

"I heard more than you think."

She just smiled and kissed his cheek. "Either way, I'm happy you're awake."

"What? You miss me?" he asked, grinning softly.

"Yes."

For a few long moments, it was sickeningly sweet as they stared at each other and he brought his hand up to her face. He'd missed her. Fuck. He'd been missing her since they gave Beth up and she stopped speaking to him.

Quinn licked her lips nervously as she stared at him. "I need to tell you something-"

Finn burst into the room a second later, pale and panting as Quinn sprang out of the chair.

"Dude-"

"Finn!"

"You're awake." Finn's face faltered and, fuck, if he sucked at crying girls, he was even worse when it came to the big lug. He wasn't dealing with that now. He'd been awake for less than an hour.

"Cry and I'll kick your ass." The threat fell short considering he barely lifted his head and he started coughing a second later, but whatever. He mumbled a _thanks_ as Quinn handed him his water again, soothing the throat that was apparently still getting used to the talking thing.

"I'll give you two a minute," Quinn said as she squeezed his hand gently. "I'm glad you're awake." Then, she was slipping past Finn and out of the room. For a minute, he wanted to ask her to stay, but the words didn't come and he ended up alone with Finn.

"Hey."

"You woke up."

Okay. So Finn was doing that dazed, state-the-obvious thing he did when his brain hadn't caught up with him yet. Alright then. "Yeah."

"You faded… I thought…"

"I know. Me too."

They were seriously approaching chick flick levels of sappy, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Finn was starting to blubber and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't feeling a little overwhelmed too. This whole thing was insane. He'd been a fucking ghost and now he wasn't. He just…

Fuck.

He was awake.

* * *

Quinn made it as far as the waiting room before she all but fell onto a chair. He was... She couldn't... Dazed, she texted Santana, trusting the other girl to spread the news that Puck was awake, because she wasn't sure she was quite with-it enough yet to do it herself.

Eleven months. Puck had been comatose for eleven months and he seemed okay. Of course, he was weaker physically, but that was to be expected. Other than that, though, it was him. As far as she could tell, nothing else had changed. There was still a good possibility that he'd sustained some level of brain damage between the accident and the coma, but… God, he was awake. He'd been talking to her and she hadn't realized until then that she'd actually been forgetting what his voice sounded like. She'd forgotten the confusing way his eyes seemed to drift between hazel and brown without ever really deciding on one or the other.

She sighed, suddenly overwhelmed as she sat there, hands cupped over her nose and mouth as she tried to keep herself from crying. She shouldn't be crying, right? The two of them... It was in the past. It was over. She'd put an end to it after the papers were signed and she cut him from her life.

But they had Beth now. Well... She had Beth. She knew she still had to tell him about Shelby and about the accident. He would have to decide if he wanted to be part of Beth's life and, by extension, hers.

She looked back in the direction of his room, smiling softly as the nurses she'd come to know wished her and Puck well. She didn't have the heart to tell them that there was no her and Puck. They'd all been so kind and she knew some of them remembered her from sophomore year, stomach out to there and Puck standing awkwardly at her side because they'd never really been together then. They'd simply floated in that strange in-between, living together, sleeping in the same bed, but no commitment and no promise.

He'd wanted to be with her. She'd been too scared to trust him.

Now... It wasn't possible, right? She couldn't have fallen in love with him all over again while he was in a coma. There was nothing substantial to it. There was nothing but days on end of her sitting with him, reading until she couldn't anymore and watching as Beth climbed on him and called him Daddy. He'd been comatose. They hadn't had a real conversation since she'd given birth.

Even through all that, though, he'd helped her. He'd been lying there unconscious and, somehow, he'd unknowingly managed to save her from the mess she'd been becoming. The accident had acted like a slap in the face, a reminder that she could ignore something and push it away, but the final decision wasn't up to her. It was never up to her. If he'd died, he would have done it without her ever being able to say so many things she wanted to say. She never would have been able to tell him she was sorry for the way she'd treated him when she was pregnant. She'd never get to tell him that she wished she'd let him in enough to try, because he'd been right. They could have been a family and she didn't doubt he would have done everything he could to make sure they were happy.

She never would have gotten to tell him that she'd been in love with him too and that she was starting to think she still was.

The tears came before she realized she was close to shedding them. Then, she was sobbing, happy, grateful sobs as she doubled over in the chair.

He was awake.

He was awake.

She leaned back against the chair, face wet and shoulders still shaking as she raised her fingers to her lips. Maybe Sarah had been right, she thought, casting a little smile in the direction of Puck's hospital room.

Maybe he'd just needed a kiss.

* * *

_**Epilogue  
**_

"Noah Puckerman!"

Finn called his best friend's name, grinning as Puck took the rolled-up paper and bonked him over the head with it. It wasn't a diploma, but it was close enough. Their little mock-graduation ceremony, months late and with nothing more than Quinn's old cap and the letter notifying Puck that he'd passed the GED exam.

"Graduating class of one, I declare you now... Well, graduated."

"You are such a fucking dork," Puck said, laughing as Quinn moved his tassel over to the appropriate side before Finn could snatch it to throw. Rachel snapped a picture one-handed as they did it, Beth settled on her hip.

"Yeah. Don't care," Finn replied as he stepped back and let Quinn congratulate her boyfriend properly. He moved over towards Rachel and Beth, giving the little girl a smile as her parents were otherwise occupied. "Someone needs to remind them Quinn said no siblings until after college."

"I think they're sweet," Rachel said. She let Finn take Beth from her, watching as he raised the little girl over his head and spun them a couple times. "They deserve it."

"Yeah."

Finn watched his friends for as long as he could before it would have gotten awkward. They'd all been through hell over the last year. The accident. The coma. Puck haunting his ass for months on end. Shelby. Beth. Looking back, he didn't understand how it was all real. It seemed like some kind of weird dream that couldn't have possibly been real, but it was. He looked at Puck and he knew it was.

Considering everything, Puck had healed up pretty amazingly from the accident. The doctors hadn't been able to detect any brain damage aside from the migraines he seemed to get now, but the doctors were looking at him like he was some kind of medical miracle. He was okay, though. He was working his way through physical therapy to regain the muscle he'd lost while he did his Sleeping Beauty impersonation and he was doing good. Granted, he wasn't perfect yet. The guy still looked a lot smaller than he did before the accident and he still had trouble being active for too long, but he was managing to keep up with Beth.

The little girl laughed as if on cue and he spun them one more time before he handed her back to Rachel. He was gonna miss her when he flew off to Georgia next week. He was going to miss all of them. They were all going to be leaving soon, though. Rachel was heading off to New York the day after him so she could move into her dorm, full of some glittery stationary the guys in Georgia were sure to mock him for and a promise that they were going to write every day. Puck, Quinn, and Beth were going to be moving into their apartment in New Haven in a couple weeks, some small little family he knew Puck had always wanted. Everything was falling into place when, just a few months ago, he'd been sure that he'd just watched Puck die.

Watching him fade had terrified him and he wasn't sure how long he'd stared at the empty space before he had finally snapped out of it and ran for his car. He'd sped the entire way to the hospital, scared that when he got there, there'd be a doctor saying that that he was sorry and that Puck's heart had given out or something. Which… Might have been a stupid fear since he was pretty sure nothing was ever wrong with Puck's heart, but he'd been scared, okay? He'd just watched his best friend fade into nothing after haunting him for almost a year. But he hadn't died. He'd gotten there and Puck was fine. He was awake and him and Quinn were doing that staring thing he probably shouldn't have interrupted, but whatever. He'd needed to see his best friend and the second Quinn had left the room, he'd hugged the guy. Maybe he'd cried a bit. Whatever. Puck didn't mock him for it and he didn't mock Puck for doing the same thing.

He smiled as he watched his best friend, knowing that Puck had come a long way in the few months since he'd woken up. He was doing good in physical therapy and there was the eventual decision to study and go for his GED rather than go back for his senior year. Maybe he would have if he hadn't had Quinn and Beth to think about, but he did. He'd flat out refused when Quinn offered to defer her acceptance a year so they could stay in Lima, firm that she wasn't putting her life on hold so that he could drag his ass through school. The GED seemed like the logical for him to do. Weeks of lessons and cram sessions and here they were, standing in Quinn's back yard and giving Puck his own graduation.

Things were okay now, he thought as Puck and Quinn joined them. Quinn took Beth from Rachel, smiling as Puck dropped the too-big cap onto their daughter's head.

They were all okay.

The End

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